


The High Warlock of Brooklyn

by theonetruenorth



Series: Shadowhunters headcanons [16]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Abuse, Bamf!Magnus, Domestic Violence, Embedded Images, M/M, high warlock of brooklyn, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8500996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theonetruenorth/pseuds/theonetruenorth
Summary: The Nephilim knew - of course they knew - that a title of High Warlock didn’t fall into anyone’s lap without reason. That the warlock who watched over a specific area had to be someone with considerable skill, experience and who probably lived through at least a couple of centuries.





	

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS for domestic abuse and violence (not between Alec and Magnus). I tried to avoid sounding too preachy but if you feel otherwise, I’m always open for constructive criticism and discussion.

The Nephilim knew - of course they knew - that a title of High Warlock didn’t fall into anyone’s lap without reason. That the warlock who watched over a specific area had to be someone with considerable skill, experience and who probably lived through at least a couple of centuries.

Each major city had a High Warlock. Magnus wasn’t guarding _just_ his neighborhood - all the boroughs fell under his jurisdiction. Alec asked him once how he chose his title and Magnus told him that being a _High Warlock of New York_ was a mouthful and _High Warlock of Brooklyn_ sounded more stylish. But all joking aside, Magnus was good at his job. He knew each and every warlock that lived in his city, or  at the least knew _of_ them if they hadn’t met personally.

Alec knew all of this, and yet he still hadn’t really understood it until he came home (to Magnus’ place, which had became _home_ without him even realizing) and found Magnus and a female warlock sitting on the couch together. The woman was curled up a little, hidden away from Alec’s sight, and Magnus was holding her close as she sobbed her heart out.  

Alec stood there awkwardly in the doorway, not sure if he should come in or not, but Magnus’ eyes softened a little when he saw his boyfriend. After a moment’s hesitation, Alec entered the loft and closed the door behind him. The quiet sound of the lock falling into place was enough to make the woman jerk away from Magnus and raise her head to look at Alec.

They both froze. The woman clearly didn’t expect to see a Nephilim in Magnus’ home and nervous red sparks danced along her fingers as she immediately went into fight-or-flight mode.

Alec, however, froze for an entirely different reason.

The woman had pure white skin and equally white hair, making her look like some kind of winter princess from mundane fairy tales. Except her skin was marred by ugly, painful-looking burns. Raw red marks with blackened edges crisscrossed the skin of her upper arms, stretching up over her neck and the right side of her face. She had gorgeous, pink-colored eyes, but the right one was swollen shut due to her injuries. The hair on the right side of her head was burned off.

“Easy,” Magnus murmured, grasping her hand gently, not paying attention to the painful zap of defensive magic that stung his fingers. “Easy, Ailise. Alexander is not going to hurt you.”

“He’s a Shadowhunter,” she hissed in a strange accent that Alec couldn’t really place.

“Yes, but he’s _my_ Shadowhunter,” Magnus said and smiled encouragingly when she finally tore her eyes away from Alec and looked at Magnus instead, “and I promise you, you’re safe. No one is going to hurt you again, you have my word. Have you ever heard of me breaking my word?”

“No.” She deflated visibly, lowering her hand and letting her magic die down. She carefully wiped at the tear tracks that still lingered on her face, mindful of her burns.

Alec caught Magnus’ eye and his boyfriend just shook his head, so Alec made himself scarce and went to the kitchen to give them some privacy. He busied himself with preparing some chamomile and jasmine tea. He could hear hushed voices, the quiet conversation that went on in the other room, and caught only snippets of it. Something about a spell and a man named Nikolai. Before the tea was ready, there was the sound of a portal opening and closing and after that, silence.

Alec poured the hot water into their mugs (Magnus’ current favorite mug was a gift from Clary and it had ‘ _Espresso Patronum!’_ written on it in a squiggly font and Alec had a weird feeling that he wasn’t clued in on the joke) and made his way back to the living room. Magnus was alone on the sofa and he accepted the tea that Alec handed over before he sat down next to him, their thighs brushing.

“Is she gone, then?”

“Yes,” Magnus sighed and took a long sip of his tea. “I’ve sent her to see Cat. I figured she’s going to have more luck with healing the damage than I ever would.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, just drinking their tea, before Magnus let out another long sigh and placed his now half-empty mug on the coffee table.

“I know I promised you a date night, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to postpone,” Magnus said, his gaze fixed on the far wall of the living room, “and believe me when I say, it’s the last thing I want to do right now.”

“Magnus,” Alec whispered, “who did that to her?”

Magnus was quiet for so long that Alec thought he might not reply at all.

“It was her husband.”

Alec startled, the mug in his hand twitching so much he nearly spilled the hot beverage on himself.

“What?” He asked, placing his tea next to Magnus’.

“Warlocks don’t get married often and even then, it’s rare that they choose another warlock,” Magnus said, “since the whole immortality thing complicates relationships so much. If you end up eventually hating each other, you will wait a very long time for ‘till death do us part’.” Magnus huffed out a humorless laugh. “But sometimes it feels like only another immortal can truly understand you. And the knowledge that they won’t pass away and you won’t have to deal with the grief… well. There’s a certain appeal in that.”

Alec could feel his throat clenching at the thought. They had, eventually, came to terms with Alec’s mortality and what it would mean for Magnus after he died, but it wasn’t exactly a subject he was comfortable with touching on right now.

“So she married another warlock?”

“Yes. A man named Nikolai.”

“And,” Alec hesitated, “he did that to her?”

Magnus finally looked back at Alec, his stare cold.

“We might be immortal and half demons, my dear, but the other half of us is still very much human. We have the same issues. Same marital problems. And we can be violent. Spousal abuse is not something that happens only to mundanes.”

And of course that Alec knew that. At least, some intellectual part of him did, but he had never known anyone who was a victim of abuse and it was hard for him to wrap his head around it.

“It didn’t look like he hit her,” Alec said, quietly, “more like…”

“Like he used his magic to hurt her? That’s exactly what happened.” Magnus’ expression twisted into something ugly and vicious for a fraction of a second. “In a way that’s even worse. When you live with someone for that long, someone who is capable of magic, you learn to trust it. You don’t fear it, because you interact with it daily. It fills your home, the air you breathe, it seeps into your clothes. I’ve lived with Ragnor and Cat for some odd years and I remember their magic merging with everything around us, and even with my own power. It’s intimate and personal, and _we_ weren’t married to each other. I can’t even begin to imagine how Ailise felt when he turned his magic on her.”

“Those burns, can they be healed?”

“Scars from magical fire are hard to fix, but Cat is a genius. If anyone can help Ailise, it’s her. Though the poor girl will still have to use glamours until she fully recovers.”

Alec’s first thought was why didn’t she fight back? She could have used her magic to defend herself, to strike back at the one who hurt her. But then he immediately felt ashamed, because it sounded an awful lot like he was blaming _her_ for letting it happen. Alec couldn’t imagine having someone he loved attacking him. If it happened to him, if his mother or father or anyone he cared about came at him with a seraph blade? If it was _Jace_ , the other part of his soul, who tried to hurt him?

He probably wouldn’t have fought back either.

“Do you know why he did it?” Alec asked, swallowing hard and trying to clear his mind of such horrible thoughts.

“No,” Magnus shook his head, “and it doesn’t matter. Nothing can justify what he did.”

“I’m not saying that–”

“I know, darling,” Magnus interrupted and reached out to gently squeeze Alec’s knee. Alec covered Magnus’ hand with his own.

“Why did she come to you, though?” Alec asked. “Why didn’t she go to…”

He hesitated, trying to find another solution and coming up short.

Where else she could have gone?

Magnus looked at him with sad eyes, observing Alec as he came to the slow realization that she didn’t have anyone else. Even the mundanes had authorities for that - the police or social workers or courts. Ailise had no one.

No one except for the High Warlock.

“If it’s a Nephilim who hurts a Downworlder, then yes, we can go to the Clave to get justice,” Magnus said, taking pity on Alec. He didn’t like the growing look of alarm on his boyfriend’s face. “If two groups of Downworlders, let’s say, vampires and werewolves, decide to go for each other’s throats, then we can _probably_ alert the Clave as well. They would put a stop to an all-out war between the two races, if only to avoid the amount of mess they would have to clean up later.”

Magnus ignored the displeased noise that Alec made.

“But this?” Magnus sneered. “The Clave doesn’t care when it’s just the two of us hurting each other. So we deal with it on our own. Everything stays within the clan, as the vampires sometimes say. It’s been that way for ages and it’s going to stay that way.”

“So you are the one who is going to deal with it,” Alec whispered.

“They are my people,” Magnus said, as if it was obvious. “It’s my duty.”

And this was another thing that others didn’t understand. Magnus might be eccentric and might drive people up the walls if he chose to fuck around with them. He might demand outrageous prices for his services and could be finicky about choosing his clients. He was entitled to it, seeing as he had spent centuries perfecting his craft and had every right to place high fees on his skills.

But what people didn’t understand - people like the Clave members, or Alec’s mother - that Magnus’ dominion over the warlocks of New York was not absolute. He was as much their servant as he was their leader in a time of crisis. When Valentine emerged again, it was Magnus’ first instinct to remove them all out of harm’s way and it would have worked, if not for Elias’ betrayal. So many warlocks had died that day and Alec knew that their loss still weighed Magnus down, even if he didn’t show it. Lilith’s Children were his to protect and shelter. To teach and defend.

Nikolai could not hurt another warlock like that and expect Magnus to do nothing about it.

“What are you going to do?” Alec asked quietly, not convinced he wanted to know the answer.

Magnus’ gaze shifted down for a second, to their joined hands.

“I think it’s better if you don’t know.”

And that was an entirely new kick to the gut. Alec’s first instinct was to take his hand away, but he stopped himself just in time. He tried to think about it, about the way the whole mess looked like from a Downworlder’s perspective.

Magnus trusted him, Alec knew that without a doubt. They hadn’t been together that long, but long enough for Alec to understand that his boyfriend allowed himself to be vulnerable with Alec, in a way he wasn’t with anyone else. Sometimes it seemed like Magnus had a split personality. One part of him to be paraded before the outside world. The other part that was meant only for the people he loved.

But now Alec realized that there was one more, hidden part he hadn’t really seen before, only caught glimpses of it from time to time. It was the nature of a High Warlock, who put his people first and foremost, before anything else. Keeping the secrets of the warlock race was probably the only constant, the only thing that remained unchanged throughout Magnus’ long life.

So yes, Magnus might love him and trust him, but his people didn’t, as proved by Ailise’s reaction to him. The new generation of the Nephilim weren’t as prejudiced and blinded by hate as their predecessors, but the Downworlders had centuries of memories that made them wary. They had no reason to put their faith in Shadowhunters, not yet. Not before they proved themselves.

“You’re angry with me.”

It wasn’t really a question, more like a statement. Alec gave Magnus’ hand a little squeeze.

“No, not angry,” Alec said, leaning back on the sofa, “more like tired. Tired of this rift between the Downworlders and Shadowhunters. Tired of you keeping secrets from me, not because you want to, but because you have to.”

“Alec–”

“It’s okay. Since I’m directly connected to the Institute, you can’t tell me what you are going to do. The less I know, the better. I get that, Magnus, I really do. I wish things were different, but we still have a long way to go.” Alec sighed and looked at his boyfriend. “Just… stay safe.”

“Oh, please.” Magnus rolled his eyes so hard that Alec was surprised they didn’t fall in the back of his head, “Nikolai has less magical power in his entire body than I have in my little finger.” Magnus shook his head at Alec’s doubtful look. “And I am not going to kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m just going to… teach him a lesson.”

“Just make sure nothing can be traced back to you,” Alec said, making grabby motions at his tea and Magnus laughed and took it off the coffee table to pass it to him. “I don’t want to be called into the Institute in the middle of the night because someone caught you showing off.”

**Author's Note:**

> Every fic in this series is first posted to my tumblr and I upload it to AO3 with a delay. If you want to read my stories as soon as I finish them, follow me there: theonetruenorth.tumblr.com
> 
> Beta-read by [brizzbee](http://brizzbee.tumblr.com/)


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